This exhibition has been organized in partnership with the April 23-25, 2015 Association for Asian American Studies annual conference. Along with Mark Chiang from UIC, I am serving as the site committee co-chair. This is one of two of our events that is free and open to the general public. Special thanks to our site committee member Larry Lee for facilitating the organization of this exhibition.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jacqueline Chao
Aram
Han Sifuentes
WORK WERQ
Art Exhibition and Performances featuring
Chicago-based Asian American Artists at FLATSstudio
CHICAGO, IL – March 26, 2015 – Work Werq is a group art exhibition
featuring work by Matthew Avignone, Aram Han Sifuentes, Regin Igloria, Audra Jacot, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Hee Ran Lee with Kinnari Vora, Patricia Nguyen, Soo Shin, Leonard Suryajaya, and _jJ4XXX5YN_ (collaboration between jonCates and 愛真
Janet Lin), curated by Jacqueline Chao and Aram Han Sifuentes. The
exhibition will have an opening reception featuring live performances on
Thursday, April 23, 2015 from 6-10 pm at FLATSstudio No. 1050, located at 1050
W. Wilson, Chicago, IL. The exhibition will run April 23-May 8, 2015. To attend the opening reception, please RSVP
to workwerq2015@gmail.com by Wednesday, April 22, 2015.
 |
|
Leonard Suryajaya. Mom and all the
jewelry she bought herself with her own
money. 2015. Archival inkjet print.
40” x50”. Image is courtesy of the artist.
|
Work (\ˈwərk\) noun,
verb, adjective: labor, process,
art.
Werq (\ˈwərk\) verb: to wear (whether clothes or skin) with ferocity.
Work Werq challenges
preconceived notions of Asian (American) identity. The exhibition presents
Chicago-based Asian American artists who explore a range of topics including:
migration, globalization, gender, queer politics and identity. Opening night will include visual arts of
various media and live performances.
This
exhibition is organized in partnership
with the Association of Asian American Studies 2015 Annual Conference, to be held at the Hilton Orrington in
Evanston, IL, from April 23-25, 2015.
About the Artists
Matthew Avignone is a Korean-American photographer
born in 1987. In 2011, he obtained is B.A. in photography from Columbia
College, Chicago. He has been nominated for the 2012 Baum Award for Emerging
American Photographer (The Baum Foundation, San Francisco, CA). His work has
been exhibited at the Aperture Foundation (2011) and in the Pingyao Photography
Festival: Student Exhibition, Pingyao, China (2011). His book, An Unfinished
Body, is now part of the collections of the George Eastman House
International Museum of Photography and Film (Rochester, New York) and the
International Center for Photography (New York, NY). He is currently working
and living in Chicago. matthewavignone.com
Regin Igloria maintains
a studio practice in Chicago, IL, which revolves around teaching and serving as
an arts administrator. He has taught at Marwen, The School of the Art Institute
of Chicago, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Rhode Island School of Design, and
many local institutions. In 2010, he founded North Branch Projects, a community
bookbinding project based in Albany Park, Chicago. Currently he serves as the
Director of Residencies & Fellowships at The Ragdale Foundation. His work
has been exhibited and collected internationally, including the ANTI
Contemporary Art Festival, Out of Site Performance Festival Chicago, Tiger
Strikes Asteroid, The Franklin, Zg Gallery, and The Center for Book Arts NYC.
He is a recipient of a 3Arts Teaching Artist Award, Propeller Grant, 96 Acres
Project Grant, and an Americans for the Arts Fellowship. Residencies include
Ucross, ACRE, and The Wormfarm Institute. He received his MFA in Painting from
Rhode Island School of Design. reginigloria.com
Audra
Jacot is a Filipino-American artist and curator based out of
Chicago. Raised in the Mormon faith, Jacot's work celebrates the empowerment of
sexuality through sculptural form. She recently received her MFA at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, through the Art and Technology program.
Her work was recently featured in Bravo’s 100 Days of Summer. She is currently
the Chief Curator for FLATSstudio in Chicago as well as the Tech Coordinator
for the CPS Advanced Arts Program at Gallery 37. audrajacot.com
Kiam Marcelo Junio (preferred gender pronoun: "they/them") is a Chicago-based
interdisciplinary artist creating work through various media,
including but not limited to, photography, video, performance (blending butoh,
drag and burlesque), sculpture and installation, and culinary arts. Their
research and art practice centers around queer identities, Philippine
history and the Filipino diaspora, post/colonialist Asian American tropes and
stereotypes, military power dynamics, the politics of personal agency, and
social justice through collaborative practices and healing modalities. Kiam
served seven years in the US Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. They were born in the
Philippines, and have lived in the U.S., Japan, and Spain. iamkiam.com
Hee Ran Lee is a
performance artist whose body centered work explores private and public
gestures of the Asian female body in the patriarchal power structure and
investigates cultural marginalization. Her recent grants have included the ARKO
Young Art Frontier from Arts Council Korea (2013), she was a Semi-finalist for
the emerging artist prize from The Claire Rosen & Samuel Edes Foundation
(2012) and The Anna Louise Raymond Fellowship (2012). Her work has been shown
at Culture Station Seoul 284(Korea 2014), Grace Exhibition Space (New York
2013), The Watermill Center (New York 2012), Defibrillator Gallery (Chicago
2012), and Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai 2011). She holds an MFA specializing
in performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently
a fellow artist of LEIMAY 2014-2015 at CAVE in New York. heeranlee.com
Patricia Nguyen is a Chicago
based performance artist, healer, and educator. She has over 10 years of
experience in performance, arts education, community development and human
rights, which has taken her work to the United States, Vietnam, Brazil,
and the Philippines. Her current work explores the dialectic between modernity
and dispossession as it relates to notions of freedom and home. She has
performed at the Nha San Collective in Vietnam, the Mission Cultural Center in
San Francisco, Oberlin College, Northwestern University, and University of
Massachusetts Boston. In 2010, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to work in
Vietnam. She has since co-founded cây, the first life skills and art therapy
reintegration program with the Pacific Links Foundation for human trafficking
survivors along the border regions of Vietnam. She is
currently a Ph.D. student in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. patricianguyen.info
Soo Shin was born in Seoul, Korea and
currently lives and works in Chicago. She holds an MFA from the School of Art
Institute of Chicago. She is interested in the duality of having faith in the
unknown and the codependent nature between faith and struggle. Through
sculpture, painting, and drawing she turns the psychological struggle into
physical experience using the latency of body in her work. She is a recipient
of the Vilcek Foundation Fellowship at Mac Dowell Colony Artists residency (Peterbrough,
NH) Program and has recently shown her work at Peregrine Program (Chicago, IL),
the Dominican University (River Forest, IL), the Rhodes College (Memphis,
TN). sooshin.org
Influenced by the cultural milieu of experiencing intra-ethnic
relations in Indonesia, Leonard
Suryajaya’s work explores identity, culture, gender, and sexuality. By
utilizing photography, video, along with elements of performance and
installation, his work challenges and deconstructs the perspective we use to
scrutinize and observe our roles in a transnational global world. He is
currently in his second year as a candidate for an MFA in photography at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago. leonardsuryajaya.com
Kinnari Vora, a versatile dancer and choreographer,
was born in India. She started learning Bharatnatyam, Classical dance form of
South India at the age of 5 and continued her advanced training under Guru
Sarmishtha Sarkar (India). She also learnt Kathak, a North Indian Classical
dance form and various Indian folk dances with Setu folk dance group. Kinnari,
has performed both Classical and Folk dances in several prestigious dance
festivals in India, US, Greece, Poland, Italy, Israel. Currently based in
Chicago, Kinnari found the right platform to suffice her creative thirst for
classical, folk, contemporary and fusion Bollywood at Pranita Jain’s Mandala
and Kalapriya Dance Company. Her recent performances include Redmoon Theater’s
winter pageant, all night World music festival, Harris Theater, Chicago summer
dance, Chicago humanities festival.
_jJ4XXX5YN_ is the Noise Country duet of jonCates
&& 愛真 Janet Lin, who got married in a fever,
hotter than a pepper sprout. j4xxxsyn.tumblr.com/
About the Curators
Jacqueline Chao has a doctoral degree in Art History
from Arizona State University with research emphasis in Chinese art. She
has organized and independently curated several art exhibitions, including at
the Phoenix Art Museum, ASU Art Museum, and the University of Toronto Art
Centre, as well as published extensively on early and contemporary Chinese
artists. She currently teaches East Asian Art History at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago, and researches Chinese Art at the Art Institute of
Chicago.
Aram Han Sifuentes is a social practice fiber artist and works
closely with Chicago based non-profit organizations, community centers, and
public schools to facilitate workshops for immigrant communities. She has
exhibited her work at the LuXun Academy of Fine Art in Shenyang, China, and the
Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA. Her solo exhibitions include
“A Mend” at Babson College in Wellesley, MA, “73,000 forms” at Chicago Artists
Coalition in Chicago, IL, and “Immigrant Takeover” at the Center for Craft
Creativity and Design in Ashville, NC. Han earned her BA in Art and Latin
American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008, her
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College
of Art in 2011, and her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013. aramhan.com
Work Werq
Featuring Matthew Avignone, Aram Han Sifuentes, Regin
Igloria, Audra Jacot, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Hee Ran Lee with Kinnari Vora, Patricia
Nguyen, Soo Shin, Leonard Suryajaya, and _jJ4XXX5YN_
(collaboration between jonCates and 愛真
Janet Lin)
Curated by Jacqueline Chao and Aram Han Sifuentes
Exhibition dates: April 23-May 8,
2015
Opening reception: Thursday, April 23,
from 6-10 PM
Featuring performances,
DJ, and drinks throughout the evening.
To attend the opening reception, please RSVP to
workwerq2015@gmail.com by Wednesday, April 22, 2015.
_________________________________
FLATSstudio is our way of using empty storefronts and
vacant commercial spaces in FLATS buildings to support, engage and encourage
the artistic spirits of our community. FLATSstudio is an organically evolving
program with the core goal of using the Arts to develop the community where
FLATS residents live. FLATSstudio creates spaces to live, produce, and exhibit
– tying the artists directly with the community by creating services available
to give back. Our program hosts monthly galleries on the
third Friday of every month and also offers an artist housing program
to those who qualify.
FLATSstudio, 1050 W.
Wilson, Chicago, IL, 60640
(CTA: easily accessible on the RED Line, Wilson
stop).
All viewings after the
opening reception are by appointment only.
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